Why Shaw isn’t going anywhere — at least for the near future

Stanford head coach David Shaw takes questions during a news conference in Los Angeles, Monday, Dec. 30, 2013. Stanford is to face Michigan State in the 100th Rose Bowl NCAA college football game on New Year’s Day. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

As soon as any major college or NFL head coaching job opens up, David Shaw’s name is one of the first mentioned.

That happened again this season. Shortly after Mack Brown decided to step down at Texas, I got a call from a Dallas sportswriter who said he heard Texas was sending feelers to Shaw. I told him I thought Texas — even at $5 million or $6 million a year, well above what he’s making at Stanford — would be a step down for him.

Six NFL coaches were fired this year, so Shaw’s name has come up in connection with some of those jobs too. Shaw served as an assistant coach with the Eagles, Raiders and Ravens before joining forces with Jim Harbaugh at the University of San Diego and Stanford. He’s familiar with people in the NFL, and they’re familiar with him.

Shaw addressed the NFL issue at a press conference two days before the Rose Bowl. “I have not and don’t plan on interviewing with anybody,” he said. “I think it’s really nice that my name gets batted around, and that’s great, and part of it is because I do have nine years of NFL experience, so it seems like an easy transition for some people. But honest, I’m looking forward to playing this game and getting into the offseason and starting to put together another winning season next year.’’

Many observers look at those nine years in the NFL as a reason he’d want to come back to the pros as a head man. I may be wrong, but I look at that NFL service time as a reason he won’t. Or at least, why he won’t make the jump in the forseeable future. He has seen first-hand how weird the NFL can be, how impatient owners can be, how unrealistic fans can be and, yes, how tough the media can be in some NFL cities. He know how tough it is to win there.

I’d be very surprised if he left Stanford in the next five years. I wouldn’t be surprised if he stayed another 25 years. He loves the place. His wife, Kori, and their three young kids love the place.

As an NFL coach, he wouldn’t have the close connection he has with his players on the Farm. As an alum, he knows what they’re going through, the stress of mixing physically and mentally challenging athletic responsibilities with a rigorous academic life. Unlike any NFL head coach and the vast majority of college head ccoaches, he doesn’t have to worry about the 2 a.m. call from the police, telling him one of his players is in the lockup. Once in a while, sure, a Stanford athlete gets in trouble with the law, but every time it happens, it’s ridiculously out of character for a campus that takes great pride in character.

He gets to pursue the Pac-12 and national championship as it is, without the hassle of fans who would expect him to do it right away. He has a magnificent campus, a highly supportive administration and an academic environment that parents are dying to have their kids enter. The weather is almost perpetually inviting. The new football extension to the Arrillaga Family Center is state-of-the-art.

Because Stanford is a private institution, there’s no public statement of how much he makes. I’d guess it’s in the $2 million to $2.5 million range. He gets a lot of perks on top of that. And his compensation is bound to go up each year.